Popular is all relative, and your assessment of its popularity is not even correct. Is it as popular in the US, as the "major" sports? Overall no. However, in many parts of the world.....and the Olympics is where the youth of the WORLD are to gather...it is MORE popular than those sports that would be considered "mainstream". In many ways, it and track/field mirror each other. Almost no one, outside of a few areas, in this country attends Track events. However in Europe it is a professional sport, with the best track and field competitors earning millions of dollars. Same is true for wrestling

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it is more popular other places. and yes, a lot of people like it. it's still not that popular in terms of people watching it- tv ratings are lower than a lot of the other 'major' sports in the olympics, and they host it in relatively small venues - for example, in the london olympics, looks like there was seating for 5000-10000 people for the wrestling venue vs almost 20k for the london aquatic center, 20k for gymnastics, 80k for track, 20k for volleyball. even the velopark could seat almost 6k people.

It is they that have lost the "Olympic ideal". Their decision on this matter will not reflect the value of wrestling, but will instead, expose the depth of their understanding of what it means to be an "Olympian".

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the olympic ideal has never been as ideal (in the modern olympics) as most people think it is.

I think it was stated before that out of a possible 116,000 tickets avaliable in London, they sold 113,000.

The USA women's national soccer team ( I am a huge fan of them, truly ) played in Nashville, Tn last night vs Scotland....the attendence was a record for them in the state of Tennessee. They pulled in a little over 14,000 at the Titans Stadium. For comparison purposes, I once attended a wrestling match in Ohio at St. Johns Arena, on the campus of OSU. It was the Russian national team vs an American All-star team. It was watched by 17,000.

It is still my contention that the decision to include a sport in the Olympics should NOT be decided by which sports pull in the best TV audience, or attract the best corporate sponsors. IMO it shouldn't even be a consideration.

Any of y'all watch the wrestling broadcasts from the London Olympics? I tried, then turned it off. The current FILA rules have diminished the sport to push-me-pull-you-ball-grab. An occasional match featured a great throw, but by and large it was boring stuff.

I'm thinking that the Russian's are going to be the key to keeping the sport in the Olympics. They've got the passion for it and some big-money supporters and are upcoming hosts so they will have a forum.

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy folkstyle wrestling at the National Duals finals coming up in MN next weekend. All of the top NCAA D-1 teams will be there. Well, all the top teams except for Penn State with Cael "take my ball and stay home" Sanderson, the noted proponent of the sport.

The USA women's national soccer team ( I am a huge fan of them, truly ) played in Nashville, Tn last night vs Scotland....the attendence was a record for them in the state of Tennessee. They pulled in a little over 14,000 at the Titans Stadium. For comparison purposes, I once attended a wrestling match in Ohio at St. Johns Arena, on the campus of OSU. It was the Russian national team vs an American All-star team. It was watched by 17,000.

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To be fair, the US Women's team drew 18,000 in Jacksonville just four days earlier, playing a friendly against the same opponent.

The USA women's national soccer team ( I am a huge fan of them, truly ) played in Nashville, Tn last night vs Scotland....the attendence was a record for them in the state of Tennessee. They pulled in a little over 14,000 at the Titans Stadium. For comparison purposes, I once attended a wrestling match in Ohio at St. Johns Arena, on the campus of OSU. It was the Russian national team vs an American All-star team. It was watched by 17,000.

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comparing to women's soccer (which i also like) is practically admitting defeat!

It is still my contention that the decision to include a sport in the Olympics should NOT be decided by which sports pull in the best TV audience, or attract the best corporate sponsors. IMO it shouldn't even be a consideration.

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that's a nice thought i guess. i happen to think that having sports people care about is probably a good thing (which would also be why i would nix the modern pentathlon). what WOULD you base the consideration on?

Pound Sand, your intel is incorrect. The wrestling venue sold every ticket available for the wrestling events (and then some) and there were waiting lines to get in. This info is from Craig Sesker of USA Wrestling media relations. USA Wrestling is just up the street, I have contacts there. Your ticket was not for each round, it was for the tournament. Probably could have split the tickets up a little better, I'll grant you that.

The reason it looked like there were seats available on the telecasts, was that the countries that had athletes in the tournament were not always in their seats. Their athletes were warming up with their partners, coaches, etc. in another area of the arena. Also, most of the matches shown on TV were medal rounds. Once an athlete is eliminated, they and their fans didn't always stay to watch the guy they just lost to go on and win the medal they have trained for all their lives. I get that.

I'l grant you that greco has turned into a "wait for the ball grab" event and hope they draw your color. The freestyle wrestling was very entertaining throughout, although some of the more evenly matched athletes wrestled more defensively in the medal rounds than they had earlier in the tournament. Due to the nature of the draw and the way the brackets play out, some of the most entertaining wrestling happened in the rounds leading up to the finals.

Most of the weights were 32 man brackets and they are seeded by a blind draw at weigh ins. You draw a number and that corresponds to a place on the bracket. You may be the 2 best guys in the weight and wrestle each other in the first round. The loser is automatically eliminated unless your opponent makes it to the gold medal match. Then you are drawn back into the repechage or consolation bracket where you wrestle for a bronze medal, 2 actually. Each half of the bracket has its own repechage and the winner of that gets a bronze.

The more I am finding out as the week goes on, this was more of a "you gotta pay to play" scenario than anything else. The IOC saw that wrestling was most popular in the wealthier nations in the world. Iran, Saudi, China, India, US, Japan, etc. The IOC isn't getting any kickbacks from the wrestling community like it is from the ping pong federation and the dressage people. The IOC is only looking to get their pockets filled, nothing more.

Look what has happened in the past few days. Those countries where wrestling is most popular and that have all the money are now taking up collections to present to the IOC in order to pursuade (grease the palms of) the IOC members - all 15 of them - to allow wrestling back into the Games.

I really hope that FILA and the rest of the wrestling world can bring to light the corruption of the IOC. Wishful thinking, but I hope it happens.

that's a nice thought i guess. i happen to think that having sports people care about is probably a good thing (which would also be why i would nix the modern pentathlon). what WOULD you base the consideration on?

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Well, historical significance for one thing. Number of different countries that participate for another. Worldwide the popularity, as judged by numbers that participate....not the number that watch, for another. I am sure with time I could think of more. But TV viewership would not be one of them.

Here's a link to a wonderful read on the US Olympic Trials from 1960-1988 by James Moffatt. Interesting to hear, in the wrestlers own words, what being an Olympian meant to them.

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Terrific read.....bringing back some very good memories. Many of the people in the 72, 76, and 80's trials I either have met, trained with, wrestled against, or knew by reputation. Really fun for me to learn some of their stories of struggle and success. I cant relate to much of the success stores...especially at the national/Olympic level.....but I certainly can relate to some of the struggles! Still, I wouldn't trade those years for anything, and i'd do it all over again in a minute if given the chance. Fun reading about the "legends" from the early years as well.

Have no idea. Last contact I had with him was when he was coach at OSU and I attended clinics there as a young HS coach. I know he retired as coach in 2006. Hope he is living the good life....possibly on a farm in his native state?

Why do you know that name? LOL.......I see you have some connection to Wisconsin? And wrestling? Wisconsin, wrestling, and Helickson all go together. Native of Madison, competitor and coach in the state, silver medalist in Olympics. Announcer/color commentator for much of the Olympic wrestling TV broadcasts.

Look what has happened in the past few days. Those countries where wrestling is most popular and that have all the money are now taking up collections to present to the IOC in order to pursuade (grease the palms of) the IOC members - all 15 of them - to allow wrestling back into the Games.

I really hope that FILA and the rest of the wrestling world can bring to light the corruption of the IOC. Wishful thinking, but I hope it happens.

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The sad thing is, this is a "reformed" IOC, after the disaster that was Salt Lake City. Reading between the lines, former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch saved the decathlon and, as you say, wrestling was complacent and failed to buy enough votes.

What are arguably the three most important and rich international sports federations -- the IOC, FIFA and UEFA -- all seem to be hopelessly unaccountable, opaque and corrupt. And no-one's holding them to task.

Not a dome deal yet....just been reccomended by the executive committee of the IOC to drop it. Still has to go through 2 more steps before that becomes fact. Hopefully, the decision will be reversed during that process.